I'm back!

First: a confession. You know those little drabbles I was going to do every day? Well, I haven't exactly been keeping up with them. You see, while I didn't have internet and therefore didn't post in my LJ every day, I sort of forgot that project because of the overwhelming nature of all the others I'm working on at the moment. So, while I'm restarting the drabbles (because I like them), there won't be a backlog to fill the weeks I was offline.

I have, however, been writing every day. Not necessarily fanfic, but a lot of original fic, some poetry, and general musings on life in general. At least a hundred words a day, and usually closer to ten times that number. So while I haven't been working on the project I set for myself, I've been fulfilling its basic goal, which was to keep me writing even when I didn't feel like it.

The quick rundown of what's happened recently, in case anyone's interested:

-Started volunteering 20+ hours per week at the National Museum of Natural History. Love it. Love my coworkers (except for Super Photo Man Ali's boss, Anal Jerk John). Love the office, love the environment, love the flexibility. More on this in a later post, so I don't have a huge few paragraphs about my new job.

-Was accepted into George Washington University's fall semester for high school students, meaning I'll take college courses while I finish up high school. Cool, huh?

-Got my AP scores. Very good. Excellent, in fact. *is still high from seeing scores*

-Applied to work at CVS afternoons and nights during the week. Hopefully I will not be mugged and shot while working.

-Played in various places with the DC Youth Orchestra. When we played outdoors, it rained. When we needed light to see our music and relied on the natural illumination from the sun outside, it rained. When the roof leaked because of a defective ceiling tile and it really needed to dry out, it rained. When we were inside with fully functional lights and roofs, the sun came out in full force and the air conditioning cut off in a flagrant and mostly successful attempt to flash fry us.

-Went to see They Might be Giants downtown. That band is hilarious. The people who watch that band are more hilarious. I think I spent more time with my eyes trained on the audience than I spent paying attention to the performance.

-Read. A lot. I'm still putting the reading list together, but I'll have it available for public consumption later. Included are quite a few fanfics I've just found recently that I should have read years ago.

( 20 – Bump in the Night )

It's calling....

I just looked at the course schedule for GW Fall and found this one:

In 1987, William Shatner, still famous for his role as Kirk on Star Trek, appeared on Saturday Night Live. During a skit, in which he was playing himself at a Star Trek convention, fans asked Shatner detailed questions that suggested they were taking the sci-fi series too seriously. He finally yelled, "Get a life!" In the aftermath of this hugely popular skit, debates raged among "Trekkers" about whether or not Shatner had really meant what he said. The incident raises a number of questions about fandom. For example, what ideas or texts or people are sufficiently important to deserve fans? (Football? Elvis? America?) How devoted can fans be to their chosen idol, without provoking concern or contempt? What's the difference between a fan and a fanatic, or a disciple, or a zealot? Why do people care so much about something that is, in almost every case, so remote from their personal lives as to appear to have absolutely no personal relevance to them? And there are times when fans, by their enduring enthusiasm, manage to make a cultural icon out of something absolutely undeserving, such as Rocky Horror or the Chicago Cubs. Are fans actually part of the creative process? Or are tribute bands and fan fiction writers merely parasites of other people's artistic creations? This semester, we will read and write about fans, enthusiasts, and zealots. We will examine theories about what motivates fans, and we will collect ethnographic data. In addition, every student will select an internet fandom (e.g., Dawson's Creek or Lord of the Rings) and participate in an online writing community devoted to that series.

Dude.

Is that not perfect? That's like taking a class on my life.

I'm calling tomorrow - I want that course.